A discussion group is a synchronized conversation using a messaging application such as Twitter™. For example, there currently are discussion groups related to health issues (diabetes, lupus, weight loss, postpartum depression, etc.), hobbies (movies, wine, skiing, photography, food, sports, cars, etc.), and education (elementary school teachers, college professors, thesis writing, etc.). Typically, participants in a discussion group agree on a topic identifier for the discussion group to use (e.g., a hashtag). The participants may then participate in the discussion group by following the topic identifier, and/or generating messages that include the topic identifier.
Discussion group may further include any set of messages related to a common topic. Examples of such groups may include a set of user generated online reviews related to a particular restaurant or product. In another example, a discussion group may be a thread or chain of comments related to a topic on an online message board, or comments associated with a particular article or blog posting.
While these discussion groups are useful for their participants, they may also be relevant or useful to users who have an interest in the topic that is discussed in the group. For example, a user who is researching a health issue may find the messages from a discussion group related to the health issue useful, or may wish to participate in the next scheduled discussion group. In another example, a restaurant may be interested in what users are saying about the restaurant in a discussion group related to local restaurants, or in comments associated with the restaurant on a website for providing restaurant reviews. However, there is no way to easily search for and identify relevant discussion groups for a particular topic or query, making it difficult for interested parties to be made aware of such groups or to make use of information provided in the discussion groups.